Examining Sarrazin's Track Record

The Man Who Divided GermanyWhy Sarrazin's Integration Demagoguery Has Many Followers

The bank's justification, which the German president received on Friday afternoon, is a document consisting of approximately 20 pages. The president's office sent a copy to the Chancellery, which in turn forwarded a copy to the Finance Ministry. There, it will be analyzed based solely on its legal merit -- and not its substance -- to determine if the bank's stated reasons are watertight.

The key question is whether, after everything that has transpired, the Bundesbank can still have confidence in Sarrazin. To find the answer, his entire term in office will be examined, going back to 2009.

The 20-page report painstakingly lists all interview statements by Sarrazin that are deemed at odds with the policies of the central bank in Frankfurt. Furthermore, the legal experts at the Bundesbank have listed a wide range of quotes concerning Sarrazin, from Germany and abroad, including comments by Chancellor Merkel, German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle and other members of the cabinet, and even by European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet. The collection of quotes is intended to serve as proof that the financial institution's reputation has already been tarnished.

The report comes to the conclusion that, for the remainder of his term of office -- in other words, until the year 2014 -- Sarrazin will be unable to come to the realization that his current behavior is having a detrimental effect on the Bundesbank.

'Grave Breach'

In their accompanying letter, Weber and his deputy Franz-Christoph Zeitler make reference to Sarrazin's employment contract. According to this document, Sarrazin is obliged "to exercise restraint and moderation, in accordance with his position, towards the general public and out of consideration for the duties of his office." It states that he has to carry out his assignments "impartially and fairly," and that he has an obligation "to behave at all times in a way that upholds and enhances the reputation of the German Bundesbank."

According to the letter, Sarrazin's "behavior in public constitutes a grave breach" of these obligations, with the result that the "necessary mutual trust no longer exists." As a result, the Bundesbank sees "no alternative but to apply for Mr. Sarrazin to be relieved of his duties."

The president's office is now waiting for the German government's statement, which is being drawn up by the Finance Ministry and which will be evaluated by the Chancellery. This is important because Sarrazin's position with the Bundesbank is based on a cabinet decision.

Taking Sides

This will be the first big test for German President Christian Wulff, but he's actually already botched it. During his first official visit last Wednesday to Dresden, the capital of the state of Saxony, Wulff had only briefly mentioned the topic of immigration in his speech to the state parliament, when Holger Apfel, a senior politician with the far-right National Democratic Party (NPD), and his fellow party members held up placards. "Sarrazin is right!" was written on the signs. The orderlies had trouble pulling them out of the hands of the NPD members of the state parliament.

Later, a reporter from the German news channel N24 fired so many questions at Wulff in front of the camera that he finally said: "I think that the Bundesbank board is in a position to take action to make sure that the debate does not damage Germany."

There it was -- the German president was taking sides, just as the German chancellor had unabashedly done earlier.

If Wulff sacks Sarrazin, there will most likely be a court case. He is not the kind of man who backs down.

If it goes to court, it could turn out to be of interest that Sarrazin apparently used the staff of his Bundesbank office to conduct research for his book. On three occasions last November, for instance, he had requests for informational materials submitted to the Berlin office of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The OECD has made a number of studies available on the topic, including a comparative study of the integration of immigrants into the labor market. In two cases, the OECD sent materials to Sarrazin, while the third request went unanswered. "We did actually wonder why the Bundesbank wanted material on immigration, of all topics," recalls a staff member. OECD documents, such as the studies "Education at a Glance" and "Pisa 2006," are constantly referred to in Sarrazin's book.

No Mistake

Sarrazin isn't too worried about all that. He has considered resigning, but that would make it look as if he was admitting to a mistake. And he doesn't see his book as a mistake.

He says that he made his "greatest mistake," as he calls it, because he didn't say no at the right moment. He is referring to the interview with the Welt am Sonntag newspaper, in which he referred to a "Jewish gene." "Every individual has a performance limit," says Sarrazin, "and I had reached it when I proofread the parts of the interview that could prove problematic. I didn't recognize the explosiveness of that sentence, which would prove to be my undoing." But he had said the sentence.

Now his schedule is filled with a series of readings that are all already sold out. And after that? Does he have any idea what comes next? "No," says Sarrazin. "And if I did, I wouldn't announce it now."

This was an interesting article and it's about time that the debate on unassimilable immigrants is taking place. Although I haven't read Sarrazin's book, and am only commenting on the article, I generally agree with what he says [...]

This was an interesting article and it's about time that the debate on unassimilable immigrants is taking place. Although I haven't read Sarrazin's book, and am only commenting on the article, I generally agree with what he says and found the article seemingly objective. However, the comments by Diethard Tautz appeared absurd to me. He either has no knowledge of genetics or else is using his knowledge in the name of an ideology. Anyone with the slightest interest in genetics would know that each race and cultural group can be generally identified to a large extent by their genetic haplogroup. One can easily search the web and look up sites such as the National Geographics Genographic Project, DNATribes, FamilyTreeDNA, and others and order a kit and test one's own haplogroup. Groups such as Jews (who want to know if they are Levites, Israelite, Ashkenazi, Sephardim, Mizrahim, Cohens, etc) and Mongolians (who want to see if they are related to Genghiz Khan) are great users of these types of services. And yes, Basques have their own genetic identity. Apparently the author of this article had no knowledge of this or else would have either challenged Tautz's claims during the interview, or else provided explanations to the readers about the errors of his claims.

josepht 09/10/2010

2.

I concur with those who scrutinize his statistical claims. Germans have always been a hard working, studious bunch. Its part of their culture. It will take more than a generation or two to assimilate foreigners. The family [...]

I concur with those who scrutinize his statistical claims. Germans have always been a hard working, studious bunch. Its part of their culture. It will take more than a generation or two to assimilate foreigners. The family learning environment is key. If you can pluck a child out of a poor learning environment and give them something better that works. Ive seen it firsthand time and again. The problem is the parents of the child immigrants. They are likely more lazy and uneducated...because that's how they were raised in their home countries. That mind set is transferred to the kids. The only fix is to ramp up education for migrant adults. They should be taught to learn both German & English, and to learn a skilled trade or earn a professional degree. Do Germans care? Do the migrants care? In the end its up to them.
Any notion of genetic inferiority is a cop out. People will learn if theyre provided an environment to do so. People will work if they see the fruits of their labor.
A major problem with the German mind set is intolerance and lack of patience. This in and of itself is a behavior disorder that can be destructible to not only to the family structure, but also to immigrants who live in Germany.
Germans need to realize they are not the only smart people in the world. For example, it is widely known they excel in mechanical engineering. On the other hand, Germany lags significantly in the field of electrical engineering. In today's world one without the other is not acceptable.
The same could be said about social interaction with foreigners. For example, America is a melting pot. Every flavor of world citizen calls that country home. The benefits of such an environment cannot be denied. Granted there are intermittent problems, but they are openly discussed and worked out in the vast majority of cases.
This brings me to my next point: Many Germans lack this sense of openness and simply do not assimilate well with others who are not like them. This is a cultural problem not an intellectual problem.
As an employee in an American software company, we strongly rely on our development teams from around the world. Simply put, we seek out the brightest minds. We know first hand that intelligence and learning determined by how an individual is raised and educated, not simply by the shade of their skin.
For Germany to progress it must overcome the backward notion of isolating those who are different. Rather, they should embrace the best that humanity has to offer and work on continuously improving their fellow citizens. Anything less is lazy policy at the national level.

verbatim128 09/11/2010

3. Another disconnect

The Man Who Divided Germany? Thilo Sarrazin has, at worst, pointed at the existing division. He is blamed for a bit too much, something he dared reveal, a critical view from many in the population at large of what the [...]

Zitat von sysopThilo Sarrazin's controversial new book on Muslims in Germany has not only generated opprobrium from the political elite, it has also generated a mass following from the population at large. The tome may be full of inaccuracies, but it has struck a nerve. By SPIEGEL Staff
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,715876,00.html

The Man Who Divided Germany? Thilo Sarrazin has, at worst, pointed at the existing division. He is blamed for a bit too much, something he dared reveal, a critical view from many in the population at large of what the political class decided to ignore: Multiculturalism taken too far and left unattended by the political class and pundits alike.
Sarrazin's so called "integration demagoguery" may have just found the so called "followers", never noticed or dismissed outright before. He seems to be just as surprised as those who lament (envy?) that he, Sarrazin, is not alone in the great schism against political correctness.
The Spiegel Staff who wrote this piece failed to explain the most important question of their own by-line, the WHY.
Why, all of a sudden so many followers? Perhaps some "gene" shared by so many people who are tired of being taken for fools? Sorry, I could not resist that cheap shot.
And that brings me to the sad lament of my own. The writers went into disputing, perhaps some not-so-scientific aspects of Sarrazin's claims, with bogus arguments--as eric99 pointed out aptly before me. But for good measure, and this disappoints me from Spiegel, they failed to provide the context of their quotes from Sarrazin's statements, namely the interview in which he mentioned the genes, indeed failing to provide the full quote which mentioned the Basques not only the Jews as said to have unique genes.
And there are more examples of the same out of context use of Sarrazins words.
I will not venture to speculate whether this was done on purpose or out of lack of intellectual fairness and curiosity. Just another disconnect. But without being dramatic about it, ignore the so-called followers at your peril: they will be harder and harder to dismiss than poor Thilo Sarrazin.

BTraven 09/15/2010

4.

Perhaps you are right with your statement that ethnics can be distinguished by genetic material because every group has a special feature which makes it possible to indicate where someone belongs to. The problem is Sarrazin [...]

Zitat von eric99This was an interesting article and it's about time that the debate on unassimilable immigrants is taking place. Although I haven't read Sarrazin's book, and am only commenting on the article, I generally agree with what he says and found the article seemingly objective. However, the comments by Diethard Tautz appeared absurd to me. He either has no knowledge of genetics or else is using his knowledge in the name of an ideology. Anyone with the slightest interest in genetics would know that each race and cultural group can be generally identified to a large extent by their genetic haplogroup. One can easily search the web and look up sites such as the National Geographics Genographic Project, DNATribes, FamilyTreeDNA, and others and order a kit and test one's own haplogroup. Groups such as Jews (who want to know if they are Levites, Israelite, Ashkenazi, Sephardim, Mizrahim, Cohens, etc) and Mongolians (who want to see if they are related to Genghiz Khan) are great users of these types of services. And yes, Basques have their own genetic identity. Apparently the author of this article had no knowledge of this or else would have either challenged Tautz's claims during the interview, or else provided explanations to the readers about the errors of his claims.

Perhaps you are right with your statement that ethnics can be distinguished by genetic material because every group has a special feature which makes it possible to indicate where someone belongs to. The problem is Sarrazin concludes from it that ethnics have different IQ. According to an organisation which represents all scientists who work in that field it is a wrong conclusion.
http://idw-online.de/pages/en/news384817

distantdrummer 10/06/2010

5. Lets examine basic assumptions.

In Canada we have "multiculturalism", in Germany "integration".
Why are these things simply taken for granted? Are they somehow inevitable?
Is there some law of nature that states that every country must [...]

In Canada we have "multiculturalism", in Germany "integration".
Why are these things simply taken for granted? Are they somehow inevitable?
Is there some law of nature that states that every country must absorb the surplus population of other countries?
Political refugees is one thing but allowing a flood of immigrants from war-torn countries into the society your forefathers spent their lives building up seems illogical.
Why don't they fix the problems in their own country instead of just jumping ship? Is it safe to assume that as soon as the host country begins to resemble their native country too much, they will move on?